Cultural Construction of Health, Diseases, Illness, and Healing: An Empirical Understanding of “Pain Culture” in India

Srnivasalu Sumathi; Selladurai Manjubarkavi; Debasree Roy

doi:doi:10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11

| Peer-Reviewed

Cultural Construction of Health, Diseases, Illness, and Healing: An Empirical Understanding of “Pain Culture” in India

Srnivasalu Sumathi, Selladurai Manjubarkavi, Debasree Roy

Published in Science Research (Volume 10, Issue 3)

Received: 26 November 2021 Accepted: 22 December 2021 Published: 7 May 2022

Views: Downloads:

Download PDF

Share This Article

Twitter
Linked In
Facebook

Abstract

The concept of ‘culture’ could be traced back to Greco-Roman civilization and emerged as scientific product during 18^th century. The discipline of anthropology identified culture as its subject matter, propounded the concept like ethnocentrism and validated holistic perspective. The human socio-cultural process came to be viewed as an extension of the biological process. Thus, the complex whole definition of culture justifies heath as inclusive capabilities acquired by human as a member of a society and progress continued with diversity and change. In the postmodern era, the existing ‘culture in health care’ is striving for integration and holism. Health care cultures have simultaneously evolved along with the advancement of human civilizations with an aim of relieving human suffering from diseases and illness. The biomedical establishment and healing evolved as a subculture with cognitive worldview of the patients’ disease that results from scientifically identifiable pathogens. The evolution of cultures from ancient to modern times has necessitated these cultures to face each other due to increasing communication and thus conflict arose between the traditional and modern. The present paper substantiates with empirical case analysis of cancer patients in India, establishing that cultural diversity should be a primary concern for health care professionals caring for patients who suffers with pain as their cognitive perception towards health, illness, disease and wellness are culturally oriented. The paper also explores the concept of ‘Pain Culture’ and justifying that it was not only a physiological response but is also a bio-psychosocial phenomenon which emerges at ‘intersection of body, mind and culture and critically evaluates the relevance of inclusive palliative policy in a pluralistic society and justify cross culturally. The paper suggests that the palliative care necessarily be understood as pain management through medicine.

Published in	Science Research (Volume 10, Issue 3)
DOI	10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11
Page(s)	52-63
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Cultural Construction, Holistic Wellness, Pain Culture, Pain Management

References

[1]	Napier, A. D., Ancarno, C., Butler, B., Calabrese, J., Chater, A., Chatterjee, H., ... & Macdonald, A. (2014). Culture and health. The Lancet, 384 (9954): 1607-1639.
[2]	Kendell, R. E. (1975). The concept of disease and its implications for psychiatry. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh.
[3]	Boorse, C. (2011). Concepts of health and disease. In Philosophy of medicine (pp. 13-64). North-Holland.
[4]	Scadding, J. G. (1990). The semantic problems of psychiatry. Psychological medicine, 20 (2), 243-248.
[5]	Margolis, J. (1976). The concept of disease. Journal of medicine and philosophy, 1 (3).
[6]	Goosens, W. K. (1980). Values, health, and medicine. Philosophy of Science, 47 (1), 100-115.
[7]	Sedgwick, P. (1982). Psycho politics: Laing, Foucault, Goffman, Szasz, and the future of mass psychiatry.
[8]	Engelhardt Jr, H. T. (1976). Ideology and etiology. The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 1 (3), 256-268.
[9]	Reznek, L. (1987). The nature of disease. Routledge.
[10]	Caplan, D. (1992). Language: Structure, processing, and disorders. The MIT Press.
[11]	Wakefield, J. C. (1992). The concept of mental disorder: on the boundary between biological facts and social values. American psychologist, 47 (3), 373.
[12]	Curnow, R. N., & Smith, C. (1975). Multifactorial models for familial diseases in man. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (General), 138 (2), 131-156.
[13]	Helman, C. (2007). Culture, health and illness. CRC press.
[14]	Helman, C. G. (1981). Disease versus illness in general practice. The Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 31 (230), 548-552.
[15]	Gray, A. M. (1982). Inequalities in health. The Black Report: a summary and comment. International Journal of Health Services, 12 (3), 349-380.
[16]	Boyd, K. M. (2000). Disease, illness, sickness, health, healing and wholeness: exploring some elusive concepts. Medical Humanities, 26 (1), 9-17.
[17]	Balint, E. (1974). A portrait of Michael Balint: the development of his ideas on the use of the drug “doctor”. The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, 5 (3), 211-220.
[18]	Kirby, E., Lwin, Z., Kenny, K., Broom, A., Birman, H., & Good, P. (2018). “It doesn’t exist…”: negotiating palliative care from a culturally and linguistically diverse patient and caregiver perspective. BMC palliative care, 17 (1), 1-10.
[19]	Steiner, R. (2002). What is anthroposophy?: three perspectives on self-knowledge. SteinerBooks.
[20]	World Health Organization. (2002). The world health report 2002: reducing risks, promoting healthy life. World Health Organization.
[21]	Daut, R. L., Cleeland, C. S., & Flanery, R. C. (1983). Development of the Wisconsin Brief Pain Questionnaire to assess pain in cancer and other diseases. Pain, 17 (2), 197-210.
[22]	Morris, D. B. (1991). The culture of pain. Univ of California Press.
[23]	Moore, R. J., Owens, D. M., Stamp, G., Arnott, C., Burke, F., East, N., ... & Balkwill, F. (1999). Mice deficient in tumor necrosis factor-α are resistant to skin carcinogenesis. Nature medicine, 5 (7), 828-831.
[24]	Rollman, G. B. (1998). Culture and pain. Cultural clinical psychology: Theory, research, and practice, 267-286.
[25]	Bates, M. S. (1987). Ethnicity and pain: A biocultural model. Social Science & Medicine, 24 (1), 47-50.
[26]	Melzack, R., Wall, P. D., & Ty, T. C. (1982). Acute pain in an emergency clinic: latency of onset and descriptor patterns related to different injuries. Pain, 14 (1), 33-43.
[27]	Bates, M. S. (1996). Biocultural dimensions of chronic pain: implications for treatment of multi-ethnic populations. SUNY Press.
[28]	Scarry, E. (1987). The body in pain: The making and unmaking of the world. Oxford University Press, USA.
[29]	Roy, R. (2019). The social context of the chronic pain sufferer. University of Toronto Press.
[30]	Walker, L. S., Garber, J., & Greene, J. W. (1993). Psychosocial correlates of recurrent childhood pain: a comparison of pediatric patients with recurrent abdominal pain, organic illness, and psychiatric disorders. Journal of abnormal psychology, 102 (2), 248.
[31]	World Health Organization. (2014). Strengthening of palliative care as a component of integrated treatment throughout the life course. Journal of Pain & Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy, 28 (2), 130-134.
[32]	World Health Organization. (2011). Ensuring balance in national policies on controlled substances: guidance for availability and accessibility of controlled medicines. World Health Organization.
[33]	World Health Organization. (2014). Global update on the health sector response to HIV, 2014: executive summary (No. WHO/HIV/2014.15). World Health Organization.
[34]	Stjernswärd, J., Foley, K. M., & Ferris, F. D. (2007). The public health strategy for palliative care. Journal of pain and symptom management, 33 (5), 486-493.
[35]	Stjernswärd, J. (2007). Palliative care: the public health strategy. Journal of public health policy, 28 (1), 42-55.
[36]	American Cancer Society. (2008). Cancer facts & figures. The Society.
[37]	Bakitas, M., Lyons, K. D., Hegel, M. T., Balan, S., Brokaw, F. C., Seville, J., ... & Ahles, T. A. (2009). Effects of a palliative care intervention on clinical outcomes in patients with advanced cancer: the Project ENABLE II randomized controlled trial. Jama, 302 (7), 741-749.
[38]	WHO Expert Committee on the Selection, Use of Essential Medicines, & World Health Organization. (2014). The Selection and Use of Essential Medicines: Report of the WHO Expert Committee, 2013 (including the 18th WHO Model List of Essential Medicines and the 4th WHO Model List of Essential Medicines for Children) (Vol. 985). World Health Organization.
[39]	Silberner, J. (2012). The Hutch, Uganda gets creative in cancer fight. The Seattle Times.
[40]	World Health Organization. (2017). WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic, 2017: monitoring tobacco use and prevention policies. World Health Organization.
[41]	Rajagopal, M. R., & Joranson, D. E. (2007). India: opioid availability—an update. Journal of pain and symptom management, 33 (5), 615-622.
[42]	ICMR Population based cancer registry program-2 year report 2004-05. Report of National Cancer Registry Program, ICMR.
[43]	Connor, S. R., & Bermedo, M. C. (2014). Global atlas of palliative care at the end of life. 2014. World Health Organization and Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance.
[44]	Murray, M. A., Stacey, D., Wilson, K. G., & O'Connor, A. M. (2010). Skills training to support patients considering place of end-of-life care: a randomized control trial. Journal of palliative care, 26 (2), 112-121.
[45]	Knaul, F. M., Farmer, P. E., Krakauer, E. L., De Lima, L., Bhadelia, A., Jiang Kwete, X., ... & Rajagopal, M. R. (2018). Lancet Commission on Palliative Care and Pain Relief Study Group. Alleviating the access abyss in palliative care and pain relief-an imperative of universal health coverage: the Lancet Commission report. Lancet, 391 (10128), 1391-1454.
[46]	Khanna, M., & Garg, S. (2020). NARCOTIC DRUGS AND PSYCHOTROPIC SUBSTANCES ACT (NDPS 1985): A CRITICAL ANALYSIS. Nimit Mai Review Journal, 3 (1), 27-30.
[47]	Jakovljevic, M. M., Netz, Y., Buttigieg, S. C., Adany, R., Laaser, U., & Varjacic, M. (2018). Population aging and migration–history and UN forecasts in the EU-28 and its east and south near neighborhood–one century perspective 1950–2050. Globalization and health, 14 (1), 1-6.
[48]	United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. (1972). Ionizing Radiation, Levels and Effects, United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) 1972 Report: Report to the General Assembly, with Scientific Annexes. United Nations.

Cite This Article

Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Srnivasalu Sumathi, Selladurai Manjubarkavi, Debasree Roy. (2022). Cultural Construction of Health, Diseases, Illness, and Healing: An Empirical Understanding of “Pain Culture” in India. Science Research, 10(3), 52-63. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11

Copy | Download

ACS Style

Srnivasalu Sumathi; Selladurai Manjubarkavi; Debasree Roy. Cultural Construction of Health, Diseases, Illness, and Healing: An Empirical Understanding of “Pain Culture” in India. Sci. Res. 2022, 10(3), 52-63. doi: 10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11

Copy | Download

AMA Style

Srnivasalu Sumathi, Selladurai Manjubarkavi, Debasree Roy. Cultural Construction of Health, Diseases, Illness, and Healing: An Empirical Understanding of “Pain Culture” in India. Sci Res. 2022;10(3):52-63. doi: 10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11,
  author = {Srnivasalu Sumathi and Selladurai Manjubarkavi and Debasree Roy},
  title = {Cultural Construction of Health, Diseases, Illness, and Healing: An Empirical Understanding of “Pain Culture” in India},
  journal = {Science Research},
  volume = {10},
  number = {3},
  pages = {52-63},
  doi = {10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.sr.20221003.11},
  abstract = {The concept of ‘culture’ could be traced back to Greco-Roman civilization and emerged as scientific product during 18th century. The discipline of anthropology identified culture as its subject matter, propounded the concept like ethnocentrism and validated holistic perspective. The human socio-cultural process came to be viewed as an extension of the biological process. Thus, the complex whole definition of culture justifies heath as inclusive capabilities acquired by human as a member of a society and progress continued with diversity and change. In the postmodern era, the existing ‘culture in health care’ is striving for integration and holism. Health care cultures have simultaneously evolved along with the advancement of human civilizations with an aim of relieving human suffering from diseases and illness. The biomedical establishment and healing evolved as a subculture with cognitive worldview of the patients’ disease that results from scientifically identifiable pathogens. The evolution of cultures from ancient to modern times has necessitated these cultures to face each other due to increasing communication and thus conflict arose between the traditional and modern. The present paper substantiates with empirical case analysis of cancer patients in India, establishing that cultural diversity should be a primary concern for health care professionals caring for patients who suffers with pain as their cognitive perception towards health, illness, disease and wellness are culturally oriented. The paper also explores the concept of ‘Pain Culture’ and justifying that it was not only a physiological response but is also a bio-psychosocial phenomenon which emerges at ‘intersection of body, mind and culture and critically evaluates the relevance of inclusive palliative policy in a pluralistic society and justify cross culturally. The paper suggests that the palliative care necessarily be understood as pain management through medicine.},
 year = {2022}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Cultural Construction of Health, Diseases, Illness, and Healing: An Empirical Understanding of “Pain Culture” in India
AU  - Srnivasalu Sumathi
AU  - Selladurai Manjubarkavi
AU  - Debasree Roy
Y1  - 2022/05/07
PY  - 2022
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11
DO  - 10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11
T2  - Science Research
JF  - Science Research
JO  - Science Research
SP  - 52
EP  - 63
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2329-0927
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11
AB  - The concept of ‘culture’ could be traced back to Greco-Roman civilization and emerged as scientific product during 18th century. The discipline of anthropology identified culture as its subject matter, propounded the concept like ethnocentrism and validated holistic perspective. The human socio-cultural process came to be viewed as an extension of the biological process. Thus, the complex whole definition of culture justifies heath as inclusive capabilities acquired by human as a member of a society and progress continued with diversity and change. In the postmodern era, the existing ‘culture in health care’ is striving for integration and holism. Health care cultures have simultaneously evolved along with the advancement of human civilizations with an aim of relieving human suffering from diseases and illness. The biomedical establishment and healing evolved as a subculture with cognitive worldview of the patients’ disease that results from scientifically identifiable pathogens. The evolution of cultures from ancient to modern times has necessitated these cultures to face each other due to increasing communication and thus conflict arose between the traditional and modern. The present paper substantiates with empirical case analysis of cancer patients in India, establishing that cultural diversity should be a primary concern for health care professionals caring for patients who suffers with pain as their cognitive perception towards health, illness, disease and wellness are culturally oriented. The paper also explores the concept of ‘Pain Culture’ and justifying that it was not only a physiological response but is also a bio-psychosocial phenomenon which emerges at ‘intersection of body, mind and culture and critically evaluates the relevance of inclusive palliative policy in a pluralistic society and justify cross culturally. The paper suggests that the palliative care necessarily be understood as pain management through medicine.
VL  - 10
IS  - 3
ER  -

Copy | Download

Author Information

Srnivasalu Sumathi

Department of Anthropology, University of Madras, Chennai, India
Selladurai Manjubarkavi

Department of Anthropology, University of Madras, Chennai, India
Debasree Roy

Department of Political Science, St. Xavier College, Kolkatta, India

Download PDF

Sections

Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Srnivasalu Sumathi, Selladurai Manjubarkavi, Debasree Roy. (2022). Cultural Construction of Health, Diseases, Illness, and Healing: An Empirical Understanding of “Pain Culture” in India. Science Research, 10(3), 52-63. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11

Copy | Download

ACS Style

Srnivasalu Sumathi; Selladurai Manjubarkavi; Debasree Roy. Cultural Construction of Health, Diseases, Illness, and Healing: An Empirical Understanding of “Pain Culture” in India. Sci. Res. 2022, 10(3), 52-63. doi: 10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11

Copy | Download

AMA Style

Srnivasalu Sumathi, Selladurai Manjubarkavi, Debasree Roy. Cultural Construction of Health, Diseases, Illness, and Healing: An Empirical Understanding of “Pain Culture” in India. Sci Res. 2022;10(3):52-63. doi: 10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11,
  author = {Srnivasalu Sumathi and Selladurai Manjubarkavi and Debasree Roy},
  title = {Cultural Construction of Health, Diseases, Illness, and Healing: An Empirical Understanding of “Pain Culture” in India},
  journal = {Science Research},
  volume = {10},
  number = {3},
  pages = {52-63},
  doi = {10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.sr.20221003.11},
  abstract = {The concept of ‘culture’ could be traced back to Greco-Roman civilization and emerged as scientific product during 18th century. The discipline of anthropology identified culture as its subject matter, propounded the concept like ethnocentrism and validated holistic perspective. The human socio-cultural process came to be viewed as an extension of the biological process. Thus, the complex whole definition of culture justifies heath as inclusive capabilities acquired by human as a member of a society and progress continued with diversity and change. In the postmodern era, the existing ‘culture in health care’ is striving for integration and holism. Health care cultures have simultaneously evolved along with the advancement of human civilizations with an aim of relieving human suffering from diseases and illness. The biomedical establishment and healing evolved as a subculture with cognitive worldview of the patients’ disease that results from scientifically identifiable pathogens. The evolution of cultures from ancient to modern times has necessitated these cultures to face each other due to increasing communication and thus conflict arose between the traditional and modern. The present paper substantiates with empirical case analysis of cancer patients in India, establishing that cultural diversity should be a primary concern for health care professionals caring for patients who suffers with pain as their cognitive perception towards health, illness, disease and wellness are culturally oriented. The paper also explores the concept of ‘Pain Culture’ and justifying that it was not only a physiological response but is also a bio-psychosocial phenomenon which emerges at ‘intersection of body, mind and culture and critically evaluates the relevance of inclusive palliative policy in a pluralistic society and justify cross culturally. The paper suggests that the palliative care necessarily be understood as pain management through medicine.},
 year = {2022}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Cultural Construction of Health, Diseases, Illness, and Healing: An Empirical Understanding of “Pain Culture” in India
AU  - Srnivasalu Sumathi
AU  - Selladurai Manjubarkavi
AU  - Debasree Roy
Y1  - 2022/05/07
PY  - 2022
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11
DO  - 10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11
T2  - Science Research
JF  - Science Research
JO  - Science Research
SP  - 52
EP  - 63
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2329-0927
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.sr.20221003.11
AB  - The concept of ‘culture’ could be traced back to Greco-Roman civilization and emerged as scientific product during 18th century. The discipline of anthropology identified culture as its subject matter, propounded the concept like ethnocentrism and validated holistic perspective. The human socio-cultural process came to be viewed as an extension of the biological process. Thus, the complex whole definition of culture justifies heath as inclusive capabilities acquired by human as a member of a society and progress continued with diversity and change. In the postmodern era, the existing ‘culture in health care’ is striving for integration and holism. Health care cultures have simultaneously evolved along with the advancement of human civilizations with an aim of relieving human suffering from diseases and illness. The biomedical establishment and healing evolved as a subculture with cognitive worldview of the patients’ disease that results from scientifically identifiable pathogens. The evolution of cultures from ancient to modern times has necessitated these cultures to face each other due to increasing communication and thus conflict arose between the traditional and modern. The present paper substantiates with empirical case analysis of cancer patients in India, establishing that cultural diversity should be a primary concern for health care professionals caring for patients who suffers with pain as their cognitive perception towards health, illness, disease and wellness are culturally oriented. The paper also explores the concept of ‘Pain Culture’ and justifying that it was not only a physiological response but is also a bio-psychosocial phenomenon which emerges at ‘intersection of body, mind and culture and critically evaluates the relevance of inclusive palliative policy in a pluralistic society and justify cross culturally. The paper suggests that the palliative care necessarily be understood as pain management through medicine.
VL  - 10
IS  - 3
ER  -

Copy | Download